According to Plato, said by Socrates in response to the guilty verdict at his trial for “corrupting the youth”, this is one of the most famous sayings attributed to him:
It would be a fine life at my age to be driven out of one city after another, for I know very well that wherever I go the young men will listen to my talk as they do here. If I drive them away, they will themselves persuade their elders to drive me out; if I do not drive them away, their fathers and relations will drive me out on their behalf.
Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us will you not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical.
On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for men, you will believe me even less.
Even faced with exile, or even death (as demanded by Meletus, one of his accusers), the 70-year-old Socrates rejects the quiet life. He chooses to seek wisdom and goodness over wealth and glory.
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
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